After more than 50 years of teaching Kiwis to swim to the top of the world, Duncan Laing isn't about to call it quits.
"When you retire, you retire for a long time. While I've got a little to offer I'll keep going," he said.
"I've got a good crop of kids
with me now and I'd like to see them through to the next Olympics. It's been my life," said the Dunedin-based coach.
Laing, 70, was always going to be a life-long coach.
He discovered his talents as a swimming coach while working with young polio victims, many of whom he had to teach to swim despite missing limbs.
"It sort of grew on me, I enjoyed teaching kids to swim," he said.
"I didn't have the coaching they do today but I've certainly done my bit. I've been around the world a few times picking up pieces here and there and trying to make my swimmers champions."
"We've got to give them every opportunity to be champions and I was lucky enough to have some very good swimmers and of course Danyon (Loader) came along."
Loader, a double Olympic gold medallist, is certainly the biggest champion Laing has coached, but he swears it could have been different in the early days had he known what he knew in Loader's time.
"If I had the knowledge I had with Danyon when I had Michael Borrie or Graham Dempsey, who knows?"
- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)
